April 24, 07. In the Beginning…

Due to the fact that I began writing the 'story so far', in a Word file, there's an inconsistency in the chronology of the blog links for June. First of all, all the entries in June have two dates: June 12 - the day on which I transferred the contents of my Word file to the blog - and the date that the event actually occurred. Because I'd set up the blog to show the newest item first, I had to upload the last item first in order to present events in the order they occurred. That explains why the Older Posts link actually leads to a newer post.

The easiest way to go through the items in their order of occurrence is to use the links in the Blog Archive on the left side of the page. The last link for June (June 11 to end-June) contains a number of events occurring on different days.

From July onwards, the first item describes the latest development - and clicking Older Posts will actually display a previous post.

I never self-examine. Whenever I ventured to do so, I inevitably found an errant bump - and endured the consequent tension until it was pronounced meaningless. I gave myself over completely to the apparati and doctors to identify the lumps and bumps in my body and to reach decisions on their significance. In February, my annual mammogram failed to turn up any aberration - out of mind until July, I thought, when it's time for the surgeon's physical exam.

On the morning of Israel's Independence Day, I dried off from my morning shower and liberally applied moisturizing lotion over my upper body. Here was a rare opportunity to pamper myself on a weekday and I intended to take my time smoothing the silky cream over my arms and breasts, working down towards my belly button. Moving my hands to my sides, my fingers, rendered sensitive by the cream, felt something in my left breast that could not be ignored.

Family and close friends know that I am the only one of my siblings to reach the age of 60. My sister Jo died from breast cancer in 1985 at the too-young age of 47. My brother Tony died from kidney cancer in December, 1999. He was four months short of his 60th birthday. Although genetic testing showed that I do not carry any known breast cancer genes, the spectre of cancer hovers over me like the sword of Damocles and I have maintained a strict schedule of mammogram testing followed six months later by a manual check for the last 15 years or so. At the end of each round, I would take a moment to register relief - and then continue with my life. The morning I found the lump, I went cold and my stomach churned with fear.

May 2, 07. Well, What a Relief

The following day, I made an emergency appointment with a surgeon. Dr. Agbaria pummeled, manipulated and poked my breasts, paying particular attention to the lump, and then pronounced me healthy. He explained that a cancerous tumor does not have well-defined edges and does not move around - and my lump was well-defined and was very mobile. I cried tears of relief. To be absolutely sure, he told me to make an appointment for an ultra sound.

I made the appointment for a week later and practically skipped back to work. The heaviness of the last two days lifted and I smiled at the world.

May 4, 07. The Results

*Nachum drove to the Herzliya Medical Center to pick up the results of the ultra sound I’d had two days earlier, while I stayed home to prepare for our weekend at Jacob's Ladder (an Anglo music festival for ageing hippies and progeny). I waited for him to call me and tell me that everything was OK, to put a final period to the whole unpleasant and frightening experience. In fact, I was so confident that it would turn out to be nothing; I'd gone ahead with my plans for setting up a Swinging 60s group and written a script in which I'd referred to the lump as being nothing more insidious than a cyst.

I was in for a shock. I heard the words, 'It's not good news' and that the lump was possibly malignant.

Angry! I was enraged - I went from room to room, yelling and cursing. Sitting on the bed, suddenly deflated, I began to cry. And then, amazingly, I picked up the paper and went on reading. It's probably some stupid mistake, I thought. The doctor who looked at the pictures wasn't wearing her glasses, or entered a comment meant for someone else.

Nonetheless, a pall spread over our fun weekend.

*Nachum is my husband.

May 6, 07. Up Again,,,

Sunday, I was back at the clinic for another emergency appointment. Dr. Rosenblatt looked at the ultra sound pictures and examined the lump. 'I would've sent you away and told you to come back in three months time,' he said. He couldn't fathom why the doctor who checked the ultra sound pictures thought my lump was suspicious but because he admired her professionalism, he took her recommendation seriously and referred me to an oncological surgeon.

Life on an emotional roller coaster. I'd been down, I'd been up, then down again - and now, I was almost afraid to hope.

May 7, 07. And Down Again

The following day, I met the oncology surgeon, Dr. Sigal Librant. She too examined my lump. "Even if the ultra sound had been OK, I'd say it's suspicious.' She explained that to use a needle to extract a sliver from the lump would be difficult to do because the lump was small - also, it would take three weeks for the results. Instead, she recommended removing the lump in its entirety. She got no argument from me, I was heartily sick of the lump by then and wanted nothing more than to excise it from my body. She made a note to herself, marking it Urgent, and gave me her phone number. She would set up an operation within the week, she said.

I called her on Thursday and she told me to be ready to come to the Herzliya Medical Center on Tuesday evening at 6.00. I was to fast from midday.

May 15, 07. Operation #1

As it turned out, the operation was moved up and I had to be at the hospital at 4.30, having fasted since 11.00. For once, not eating wasn't a problem - I was so nervous I could barely get any breakfast down. Nachum and I arrived at 4.00 and *Gabi and **Yaniv a little later. When we checked in, the clerk asked what operation I was scheduled for and she answered her own question saying, oh yes, breast cancer. I was too jittery to argue with her that that had not yet been established. We moved through the bureaucratic procedures with lightning speed with the only hiccup being that the insurance covered less of the cost than I'd originally thought.

The waiting room contained a TV screen on which the status of each patient (in surgery, in recovery) was displayed. I tried to read a book but I couldn't concentrate. I was very aware of the beating of my heart. About 15 minutes later, I was called to a room and shown to a cubicle where I was directed to remove my clothes and jewelry and don a hospital gown and robe. At this point, my mind caught up with reality and my psyche grasped that cancer was a probability and it was happening to me.

I answered a series of medical questions from a nurse, who also verified my name before allowing me to put on a plastic name bracelet and then, after kisses and hugs from my family, I was led through the corridors to a room where I was to meet the anesthetist. Gabi came with me in the hopes of meeting Sigal and asking some questions - we were actually running late because Sigal had been held up in traffic.

I sat on the bed waiting for the anesthetist,I was so nervous, my heart was thumping so loudly, I assumed the position and began to meditate. Regulating my breathing served to minimize the heart thumps and I began to relax. I was brought out of the meditative state by a nurse tapping on my shoulder and asking if it was OK for the anesthetist to talk to me–apparently, he’d ventured into my cubicle but faced with a patient sitting cross-legged and with closed eyes, had scampered out at a loss at what to do.

Feeling almost light-headed – probably the result of whatever substance was been fed into my right arm – I was wheeled into the freezing operating room, where, after moving over to the operating table, I was covered with what appeared to be heated rubber pads. I’d being trying to identify the anesthetist’s accent and I asked him where he was from. Transylvania, he answered. I don’t know if I managed a puny joke about Dracula before finding myself back in the cubicle, trying desperately to open my eyes. Clearly, the operation was over and Sigal was smiling down at me, telling me that it had gone well.

* Gabi is my daughter. She's a pediatric resident at Rambam Hospital and the mother of my two amazing granddaughters.

** Yaniv is my younger son. He lives in a kibbutz in the north of the country and is active in a nation-wide youth movement.

It Pays to go Private

I was wheeled into a four-bed ward with just one other woman occupant. My bed was placed next to the window, with a wide sill, looking out on to rows of well-tended flower beds (rather than the sea-view promised by the brochure, but esthetically pleasing nonetheless so I decided it was probably inappropriate to make an issue of it). On the wall opposite was a flat screen TV. A nurse appeared carrying a tray with a light meal accompanied by a vase containing a red carnation and baby’s breath. She was very concerned that I stuff my belongings into the drawers of the bedside table rather than have them easily available on the window sill. In fact, after returning from the private bathroom, I found she’d taken some items I’d placed on the window sill for easy access, and put them back in the drawer. Why she should imagine anyone would steal my toiletries is anyone’s guess.

I went home the next morning with an adhesive bandage covering the stitches on the top left side of my breast. I felt fine and even optimistic that all would turn out well. My lump was under examination in the lab and the results would be available in four days time.

Black Thoughts…

Fact is, I am a superstitious person. I’ve developed and evolved my superstitions over a lifetime; they constitute the conversation I have with myself and my intrinsic truth. Time after time, I’ve found that dwelling on an outcome will almost guarantee it will not happen and so I set forth with great determination to imagine the worst. In my mind, I heard Sigal’s voice telling me the bad news, I fantasized going through debilitating chemo therapy and agonized over the loss of my hair.

…vs Positive Thinking

Fact is, I’m also an optimistic person. I couldn’t help allowing a fantasy of hope to intrude on my dark thoughts. My dreams, which have traditionally turned out the opposite, were happy, non-events – I simply didn’t dream about cancer, lumps or any news, good or bad. I yearned to return to my life and leave this histrionic period in the past.

I’ve always regarded myself a lucky person, living a charmed life, born on the 18^th day - which in Jewish gematria represents life - in the first month of the zodiac. I perceived myself immune to true calamity, exempt from it – and it was inconceivable, despite the respective tragedies of my siblings and my dedication to hypochondria, that I too would succumb to this disease.

Furthermore, I was proud of my health – I never felt so healthy as when visiting the sick, especially in hospital. I would feel such an affirmation of my own robust state of health that I would be imbued with extra doses of energy. Such hubris, so deserving of its comeuppance!

I’d now been overtaken by events that threatened my sense of me, my essence and my self-image.

Waiting for News

Those four days are mostly a blur in my mind – a blank. I have no idea, apart from my almost obsessive dark imaginings and occasional optimism, how I functioned, if I ate, what I read. I do remember going to friends for dinner on Friday night where the world of cancerous lumps seemed remote, irrelevant and even slightly ridiculous.

But I also recall receiving a phone call from the Herzliya Medical Center on Friday morning, asking me for my credit card details to pay for a laboratory test not covered by the health fund, a test they called Rh2. The little I could glean from the internet indicated that Rh2 inhibited cancer cell production. I think I knew what the answer would be on Sunday.

Otherwise, all I can remember of those four days was waking each morning with a churning stomach and ODing on DVDs.